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Atomism
of Matter. Jaina Philosophy maintains that paramāņu is both cause (kāraṇa) and effect (kārya)1 of the material world from the standpoint of transformation which takes place in the elements of Matter, due to external and internal causes. The Jaina conception of paramāņu as cause and effect is paralled to the conception of energy and consequence of energy of the physical sciences.2 In the Samkhya-Yoga Philosophy the material existence of paramāņu is accepted but not as an unit of matter and an ultimate cause of the material universe as it is conceived in the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika and Jaina systems of thought. It is a produced entity (Janya padartha) but not an enternal entity. It is evolved out of the first tanmatra (infraatomic potential).9
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A paramāņu represents a smallest homogeneous part of any substance. As it is not partless, so it is divisible. This is the radical difference between the atomicity of matter of the Samkhya-Yoga and the atomicity of matter of the NyayaVaiseṣika and Jaina Philosophies as embodied in their respective works.
According to the Jainas, paramāņu is ekanta (discrete) and beginningless, while a skandha (molecule) is not a
1. Tattvarthadhigama Sutra, Umāsvāti, prathama vibhāga, ch. V, sūtras 26-27; see its Bhāṣya and Tikā; comm. on the
Bhagavati Vyakhyāprajñapti, 14. 4. 510; Tattvartha Rajavārtika, Akalanka, pp. 491-92.
2. Atomic Physics, Harnwell and Stephens. p. 4.
3. Samkhyapravacanabhāṣya, Vijñānabhikṣu, ch. I, sūtra 62; Vyasabhāṣya on Yogasūtra of Patañjali, pāda IV, sūtra 14, pp. 191-3.
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4. Yogasūtra, Patanjali, pada III, sutra 52, see Vyasabhāṣya on it, p. 174; Tattvavaiśāradı, Vacaspati Miśra, p. 174. 5. Bhagavati Vyakhyāprajñapti, 1. 4. 21; 5. 7. 214-15; Anuyogadvārasūtra with Ṭikā of Maladhari Hemacandra, sūtra 91. p. 69; Uttaradhyayanasūtra, part, IV, adhyayana, 36, VV. 11, 12, 13, (see Ţika on them).
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